Monday, 21 January 2013

Jade Kerrion unites cutting-edge science
and bioethics with fast-paced action in her award-winning Double Helix series. Drawing rave reviews for its originality and
vision, and described as “a breakout piece of science fiction,” Perfection
Unleashed, and its sequels, Perfect
Betrayal and Perfect Weapon, are available in print and e-book through Amazon and other major
retailers.

TITLE: Deleted Scene from “Perfection
Unleashed”

I love the
extra features that accompany movie DVDs, like the director’s commentary, movie
bloopers, and deleted scenes. My debut novel, Perfection
Unleashed, which won multiple
awards, is frequently compared to an action movie, anime, or graphic novel, and
today, I thought I’d give you a peek into one of its deleted scenes.

But first,
what was the scene in question, and why did I delete it?

The deleted
scene was the prologue, and it set the context for the entire Double Helix series. The scene helped
transport readers from “today” into the “not-so-distant future,” and described key
players in a world transformed by the Genetic Revolution, including mutants
with psychic powers. It also introduced Galahad, the perfect human being, and
foreshadowed the existence of the abominations, inhuman by-products of the path
to perfection.

Clearly it
was an important scene, but why did I delete it?

The prologue
didn’t do much more than the first chapter did. By the first chapter, readers
are introduced to Galahad, and hear the banshee-like wails of the abominations.
By the first chapter, we know that mutants with psychic powers populate our
world, even though we have to wait until chapter three to meet Danyael, the
alpha empath, Galahad’s physical template, and the protagonist of Perfection Unleashed.

It was a
hard decision. The prologue was the scene that launched the movie in my mind,
which eventually became the Double Helix
series. I was, perhaps not irrationally, deeply attached to the scene. Still, in
the final count, the prologue slowed down my attempt to plunge my readers
straight into the action. I took a deep breath and hit delete.

Figuratively
speaking, of course. The prologue never made it into Perfection Unleashed, but I did save it as a deleted scene, and I’m
grateful for the opportunity to share it with you today. I hope you enjoy
reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

PERFECTION UNLEASHED—PROLOGUE

The large
octagon-shaped building that housed Pioneer Laboratories seemed especially
desolate on that Christmas Eve when the child was born. It brooded as it kept
watch over the manicured lawns all around, unimpressed by the gently falling
snow. The lights that usually spilled from its many windows had been
extinguished, save for one glowing softly from the highest floor.

Shepherds
did not keep watch over the child that night, but scientists did. Two gray
haired men whose seeming age was belied by the youthful vigor in their lithe
frames waited in the dimly lit birthing chamber, speaking in lowered tones
about nothing in particular. It would have been bad luck to speak about the
only thing on their minds—the child—even though they knew, logically, that that
no amount of conversation could change the outcome of that night. Still, they
could not bring themselves to anticipate success or even discuss outcomes, not
after having failed so many times before.

No angels
heralded the birth of this child. It was the soft beep of the incubator as the
timer ticked down to zero. Conversation stilled as the scientists moved quickly
to the machine. They exchanged glances but said nothing as one scientist held
his hand over the incubator’s controls. The moment of truth was at hand; the
successful birth of this child would redefine the boundaries of genetic
manipulation.

The
scientist inhaled deeply before pressing down on the switch that would open the
incubator and release the infant from the now-perfected artificial birthing
process. Both scientists held their breaths as the translucent cover of the
incubator swung silently to the side to reveal its precious contents.

The rules of
life were broken. The science of life was rewritten in that single magical
moment when the child was delivered into the world.

The
perfectly formed, healthy male infant was the most beautiful thing the
scientists had ever seen. With trembling hands and near reverence, they lifted
the child from the chamber and wiped the birthing fluids from its soft skin
before wrapping it in warm clothes. Warm and content, the child transitioned
from incubator to world without the slightest fuss, making a soft gurgling
sound—a happy sound—as it snuggled into the scientist’s arms.

The other scientist
gingerly touched the child’s tiny, perfect hands and then smiled as the
delicate, little fingers closed tightly around his. He looked up at the other
man, almost afraid to hope even though he longed to believe. “Do you think…?”

“We would
need to run tests over the course of the child’s life, but I think it’s safe to
say that it’s done.”

Yes, it was
finally done. Genetic manipulation had always been part art, part science, and
completely magical. What began with the unraveling of the double helix and the
cracking of the code of life in the Human Genome Project had finally led to
mastery over life itself. The human genome had been mapped, scrutinized, and
analyzed. Gene therapy, genetically modified food products, and cloned pets
were parts of everyday life. Cloned human beings, once deemed impossible and
outrageous, were steadily becoming the norm.

The journey
was also littered with failures. Mutants tarnished the purity of the human
race, typically created inadvertently as a result of genetic selection taken to
an extreme. And in the past few years, increasingly dangerous psychic-level
mutations threatened to tip the balance of power entirely.

But there
was still that last step—the creation of a human being from a swirling mixture
of nucleotides, building the double helix of life a base pair at a time, one
gene at a time, to create the perfect human being. For the two scientists, it
had been a lonely and difficult road, littered with failures, but the child
born on a cold and quiet night made it worthwhile. They forgot the nagging
despair they had felt during those long nights of painstakingly careful genetic
coding, forgot the helpless anger they’d felt at the mocking derision of their
colleagues. They held success now—sweet success—in their hands.

“What shall
we name the Gene Child?” one scientist asked as they left the birthing chamber
together. Their footsteps echoed hollowly down the empty corridors as they
walked towards the nursery, carefully carrying the product of thousands of
hours of work. “Gene Child” was an interesting and potentially acceptable
scientific classification for this unique creature that had neither father nor
mother, but it would need another name. “How about Galahad, after the last, the
peerless knight of the mythical Round Table?”

The name
seemed appropriate for the perfect little being. The scientist carrying the
child set it down in the crib that had been prepared, a smile curving his lips
as he gazed upon the sleepy infant. “Welcome, Galahad,” he said. The birth of
the Gene Child was their ultimate gift to the world on this quiet Christmas
Eve.

But another
voice was heard that night. Deep within the bowels of the building, a low,
inhuman moan, aching with pain and anger, shuddered its way from behind the
thick walls of its prison to break the calm silence of that perfect starless
night as something far too grotesque to be human welcomed Galahad—its
brother—into the world.

About The Double Helix
series:

His genetic code sourced from the
best that humanity offers, Galahad embodies the pinnacle of perfection. When
Zara Itani, a mercenary whose abrasive arrogance exceeds her beauty, frees him
from his laboratory prison, she offers him the chance to claim everything that
had ever been denied him, beginning with his humanity.

Perfection cannot be unleashed
without repercussions, and Galahad’s freedom shatters Danyael Sabre’s life.

An alpha empath, Danyael is rare
and coveted, even among the alpha mutants who dominate the Genetic Revolution. He
wields the power to heal or kill with a touch, but craves only privacy and
solitude—both impossible dreams for the man who was used as Galahad’s physical
template.

Galahad and Danyael, two men, one
face. One man seeks to embrace destiny, and the other to escape it.

The award-winning Double Helix series, consisting of Perfection
Unleashed, Perfect Betrayal, and Perfect
Weapon, will challenge your notions of perfection and humanity, and
lead you in a celebration of courage and compassion. Science fiction, urban
fantasy, and action-adventure readers will enjoy this thrilling roller-coaster
ride as it twists and turns through a world transformed by the Genetic
Revolution.

Sunday, 13 January 2013

This is a subject I never
expected to talk about, and as you will soon find out, one I don’t know much
about either, but it is something that has become important for me to do and I
wanted to share it. This blog was started with the intention of being a place I
could talk about any issues to do with writing, not a personal diary as such but
things that might relate to people who have an interest in reading, writing and
the emerging ebook world. This is one of those subjects that overlaps into the
personal so please stay with me if I veer off a bit…I have come to a point in
my life where I need to examine my writing, not in terms of my skill or
confidence, but in terms of my personal and business aims, as to be honest, I
feel a bit lost. It throws up all sorts of uncomfortable issues I don’t feel
especially ready to address, but I must, and I want to talk about it here.

( I HAVEN'T READ IT J )

All I ever wanted to do was to write short
stories. After fifteen years plus of thinking about it and telling myself one
day I’ll get around to it, I finally got my head in the right place to start
and the habit of daily writing was soon established and I felt pretty damn good
about myself. It was only after I finished my first story that the idea formed
in my head to self publish (once I had read about the new opportunities in eBooks.)
It was then the idea of setting up my own company came to me, there was no
reason to do it, I could happily do without a limited company, but there was
something inside me that said, take it seriously, pretend it is official and
you’ll treat it that way. It was in that order. Write first. Business second.
It never occurred to me that it would be anything more than just a hobby.

Now the truth is, it may never be
more than just a hobby but there are two ways to look at it, a hobby that I do
in my spare time or a hobby that I treat as my profession with the
understanding I will never make money from it! That may sound strange and naïve
but it’s the way I feel. As I get older I feel that what I am inside, what I
have tried to ignore or consciously push out of my mind, is an artist. I work
in an art and design university so I fully understand what a loaded phrase that
is, ‘I AM AN ARTIST!’…it makes me feel like a little bit of bile is climbing up
the back of my throat…but as clichéd as it maybe, if you feel like an artist
then you probably are. You don’t need to have a discipline, you don’t need to
be known, you don’t need to be famous, you don’t need to be rich…you just have
to know yourself and keep attempting to know yourself better, which is often
the most difficult thing out of all of those. I think there is a Stephen King
quote somewhere, sorry for not looking it up, that says something like if you
have no money and you can’t pay the bills and one day you earn money by your
writing even if it is enough to just turn on a light bulb then you can call
yourself a writer. (Please rearrange that into the correct version.) Anyway, of
course that is right, if you have a job and earn money from it then that is
what you describe yourself as, you are an electrician, you are an accountant,
you are a police officer…if you spend 50 hours a week plumbing people’s
bathrooms you don’t describe yourself as a footballer just because you play for
a local team every Sunday morning.

So anyway, with that in mind, why
I am I doing a business plan? Well, I’m cheating a bit because I’m not really.
I’m not going to send it to any bank managers, investors or fundraising sites.
I have no intention of putting anything on there that remotely suggests it is a
financially viable option. What I am doing it for is to continue what I did in
the first place, to think of it professionally so I work at it professionally. It
is going to be a business plan, reference document, tutorial how-to guide,
strategy and vision in one.

***

I have decided to take January
off from writing as I have so many things bubbling around my head that I need
to get them all down in one place and get some focus back. Since that nice idea
of simply writing every day for pleasure I’ve discovered the online community
of self publishing, editing, formatting, cover design, copyright, file
conversions, indie writers, gazillions of social media platforms, marketing,
promotion, book trailers, recordings, interviews, blogging, working with other
authors to publish their books through my company and a hundred other
activities that were not even in my consciousness when I started. It all takes
so much time and as enjoyable, interesting and stimulating as it is, it takes
time away from writing.

I need to get it all into order, as much as I may structure my
time, it still happens that I end up doing lots in one area but not as much as
I wanted in another. I’m now taking time out to put everything I
have done into one comprehensive document. I am going to use the business plan format
to make sure my vision for what I want to achieve is thoroughly examined.

I know this isn’t the most enthralling of subjects but if anyone
reads this and feels a bit overloaded with ideas then all I can say is get
organized. It feels painful taking time away from writing and in an ideal world
it would be great if we had all the time we needed to do both but in reality we
don’t and I really feel the need to get myself totally up to date with my
thoughts before moving on.

·Where am I
going?

·Why am I
doing this?

·What is the
point?

·What do I
want to achieve?

·What ideas
do I have for Thinking Plainly Limited?

These are hard questions to answer, each one of those questions has a hundred
sub questions. I have a lot of fear being honest, some of my answers go from
the boring and mundane and ordinary to the ridiculously ambitious, ludicrously
hopeful and overwhelming…but if you can’t be honest then you can’t ever move on
and that’s what I need to do now, reflect as brutally as I can and give myself
not just a kick up the backside to keep working harder, but a focused direction
and clear goals that mean I will work with discipline and confidence.

When I interact with people, whether it be on email, Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, Foursquare, LinkedIn….on and on it goes…I know that there
is so much more I can do to maximize the essential marketing and promotion that
goes with being a writer, here's an example of just a few out of the hundreds of things on the checklist:

The list of detailed questions that I have to remind myself about every day is
so long that I cannot cope with having it all in my head, I need to prioritise,
plan and develop in a logical and beneficial way…while still writing.

That is why I need that all-inclusive document I mentioned above
but in my head I’m calling it a business plan, because as much as I feel I am
an artist in the way I believe in art, I am also a business man in the way I
believe in business. If I am to achieve anything, it is me that has to do it,
no one is going to do it for me, so it may be a waste of time in some people’s
eyes but I certainly need it. So far the document is 75 sides of A4…I’ll let
you know how it goes.

I think I’ve over-run my normal
hour as I took a break to eat some peanuts and drink a cup of tea, if that’s
not a professional attitude then I don’t know what is.

R.G Rankine

www.rgrankine.com

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Dear all, if you would like to purchase any of my short story ebooks (they are all priced at the equivalent of £0.99/$0.99) then I have listed the Amazon links below but if you have another ereader you can go to my website: www.rgrankine.com and find the links for Nook, Apple, Google and Kobo. Thank you. Enjoy the blog :)

Disclaimer

Dear all, please note that I don’t check the links on my blogrolls that often so there may be some out of date or not working. I’ll do my best to remove or update when I can. I am not responsible for any of the websites that are linked below, they are for your reference and interest only and I take no liability for their services. If you would like your website listed below then please feel free to email me the details and I’ll add them. Thank you.